


Grow Anew

by Tias



Category: Naruto
Genre: I suppose this is somewhat in the realm of, M/M, Obito took a one-way ticket to doubtville and he's feeling_it.avi, and make everyone gay in the process, background sasunaru, canon divergence too, how to fuck up canon endings and bring back a dumpster fire, in other words a finer look at, not that they weren't already but exaggerations aside, some happy times with the squad sprinkled in, when they were just wee teens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 00:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16398329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tias/pseuds/Tias
Summary: The first time he’d seen the spectre of Rin, he accepted death was waiting.The second time, his stance hadn’t changed.The third time, he’d begun to doubt it.The fourth time, well.The fourth time devolved into something far worse.





	Grow Anew

**Author's Note:**

> tf are tagging systems, I've always been garbage at them
> 
> welcome to Kushina adopts her husband's team from the get-go

_The first time he’d seen the spectre of Rin, he accepted death was waiting._

_The second time, his stance hadn’t changed._

_The third time, he’d begun to doubt it._

_The fourth time, well._

 

_The fourth time devolved into something far worse._

 

* * *

 

For starters, the last thing he was expecting was to wake in a hospital.

He’s been in a critical state for little over thirty days, drifting betwixt the realm between life and death. In those days, he manages conversations with his favourite people with the exclusion of one person. Two, if he’s being generous. Three if he really wants to push it.

Granted, aforementioned people are deceased.

Which prompts the question: is it a figment of his imagination or is he merely too doubtful to figure out whether he deserved life?

 

* * *

 

_A realm between life and death, fitted with cloud clusters and a background that shifted between pale blue & orange. Sometimes melding, sometimes occupying opposite halves but never coming together in those brief moments. Tendrils of colour reach out for one another, urging to connect, yet prohibited by forces unknown. _

_“Obito! Why are you back here?” Rin asked, curiously tilting her head to the side. She poked her head out of the gathering clouds, lashes fluttering hastily._

_“I’m… not sure, actually,” he mumbled. “I don’t know how I feel about being alive. It feels… wrong.”_

_Rin began a series of hums, balancing herself on the heels of her feet with idle rockings. Her gaze wandered, expression thoughtful as she considered the situation in its entirety.  In the meanwhile, Obito was trying to place his finger on a familiar sensation approaching. He seated himself on the floor, hands on his ankles and mimicked her back and forth with a hardened countenance due to blooming exasperation._

_There had been no time to consider another thought. Thin digits curled over his shoulder and he felt cold. Inhumanly so. Did his body finally succumb? Was such dread even permitted in an ethereal space? Who-_

_“Obito,” came a harsh whisper. Too harsh. It grated on his ear, though he might have been mistaking it for grinding teeth. Branching shadows enveloped his small form; sweat trickling from his forehead._

_Rin, on the other hand, was having a blast. Her arms lowered to her waist, crossing one over the other as she giggled loudly. Unable to contain herself, she brought her knees close to her chest and curled into a hovering ball emitting titters._

_“‘ttebane, Obito,” the voice started, “you’re as dumb as several bricks cemented together.”_

_Every nerve in his visage froze, a look of bewilderment framed perfectly with wide eyes, ascended brows and flared nostrils.  “Wh-”_

_Before he was allowed to speak the one word on his otherwise entirely blanked mind, yet another familiar presence entered the picture. Though hesitant, Obito brought himself to gradually turn his head to his occupied shoulder._

_“Kushina!” a voice wheezed. “Don’t be mean to him!”_

_“His idiocy hasn’t changed at all! Murder and fourth war aside, he’s still one!” Kushina announced. Loudly, at that. So much so, the words ringing in his ears were on par with the results of a screeching megaphone directed towards the canal. “Minato, you should know this better than anyone.”_

_“I wouldn’t be here if I knew you weren’t going to try beating him with a pan,” he clutched his thighs, spine arched. “Not that the physical effects would be there, but it’s the thought that counts.”_

_Kushina, in all her reddened splendour, was in fact, holding a pan threateningly over Obito’s head. Her favourite one, too. Obito could fondly remember the last time he’d seen it, granting some smattering of resistance. The weapon faded, however, and instead he felt warmth against his cheek._

_She pinched his cheek and tugged gingerly.  “He’s back to being the boy that wanted to be Hokage.”_

 

* * *

 

Between days, he can only hear the hustle and bustle of medical-nin surrounding his bed, inspecting the work of his cells reconstructing itself. His skin sutures itself meticulously despite the pacing, mending damage in its unrushed path. Reforming sinew, muscle and flesh alike. Sakura, who oversees his recovery, occasionally plucks out a stray gnarled twig from the right side of his body.

She alternates with Kakashi, as per his own request, when she overworks herself. The days that she sits at Obito’s left to aid the work of Hashirama’s cells with a comforting haze of green.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asks, casting a look of worn caution his way. “I can get someone else to fill in for a few hours.”

He leans against the wall silently, staring intently at Obito’s sooty frame. Moonlight spills through the open window, illuminating both floor and bed edge that he can’t quite seem to care about. His sole focus is Obito and will only be Obito outside of his duties as Hokage.

For he’ll decide what to do with a living remnant of his past.

 

* * *

 

_“Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa! Are you telling me you don’t like Kakashi? At all?” Kushina asked, vibrant brows knit together. A fire of its own kind, smouldering upon her visage with visible flickers of dubiety._

_“I didn’t say that!” Obito squawked. “I do like hi- wait. Waitwait-”_

_“Oh? Do you like him as a frien-”_

_“Yes! Just a friend!” The flourish of pink over his cheeks betrayed him instantly. More than the wild flailing and head shaking._

_“‘ttebane, I don’t think I believe you,” Kushina hummed, sly grin creeping on her lips. “All these years and you didn’t think once to do anything about it?”_

_“I never got the impression he liked me back,” Obito confessed. “He was so stuck up all the time! Even when we would celebrate with Minato-sensei and you! Not even his rival could get him to do much...”_

_Kushina nodded along multiple times with the words he spoke. “I see where you’re going with that. Come with me.” She waited and extended a hand, much like a mother to her child. Once his hand reluctantly found hers, she dragged him along to the outskirts of the vicinity where no clouds had ventured._

_Minato and Rin poked a third of their heads out of a shared cloud. Both brown and blonde strands dangled, hanging upside down high above the two who addressed memories of the past._

_Kushina pointed at the centerpoint of the clearing, recollections of a bygone age animated by ripples of water he never knew existed. “Look there. Remember the first day after your mission with your team?”_

_“M- yeah. We all went to your apartment to celebrate, only I…” Obito inclined his head, hands squishing his cheeks, “fell asleep the moment I put my plate down.”_

_Kushina grinned. “Only that you thought Rin had used her lap as a pillow for your head, right?”_

_“That’s because she did!” Obito stated._

_“Did she?” Kushina quiried._

_“I- are you trying to make me doubt my own memories? I was sure, she even told me!” He pursed his lips._

_“Sounds like you need to check with Kakashi,” Kushina commented. She canted her head to the side, eyes crinkling with a wide smile adorning her lips._

_“But mo- Kushi- I have to leave,” Obito stuttered, turning on his heels to bolt away with sweat gathering on his brows._

_“Di- did you just call me mom?!”_

 

* * *

 

Sakura notes the very first movement of his fingers. Relief sparks inside of her, prompting her to rise, stretch for a long while and find a brush of sorts to jot down a note for Kakashi. Once night had fallen, she places the parchment to the side of the window frame and lodges the kunai to secure its position. Having assigned medical-nin to routinely check on him, she opts to indulge in a night out for food with Naruto, Sasuke and Ino.

Naruto’s distant sonorous cheers for Ramen Ichiraku finds its way even to Obito’s room, eliciting in the slightest crack of his eyelids.

 

* * *

 

_“So, son,” Kushina started dryly. Heavy emphasis on ‘son’ to hammer her point home._

_Inside his head was the mantra of ‘I need to leave and never come back’. He might retain his current form and no longer look like his teen self, but in Kushina’s eyes, he was still the teen she regarded as her son the moment her husband’s team formed._

_“Are you going to let your chances of living disappear?” An earnest tone weaved into her words, a look of genuine concern morphing her countenance._

_He blinked. “What do you mean?”_

_“You’ve got people waiting for you to wake up, ‘ttebane.”_

_“Can I face them after everything?”_

_“You may have started the war, but you became a key to ending it,” Kushina reminded. “Well, more that Madara started the war but my point sta-”_

_“But I was-”_

_Kushina’s palm met Obito’s mouth swiftly, fingers extending to spread over his face whilst she stretched onto her tiptoes. “Don’t. Interrupt. Your. Mother. When. She’s. Speaking.”_

_Obito, equally parts horrified and reminiscent, nodded with the utmost urgency._

_“You’re going to help Naruto on his path to being a Hokage, right?”_

_Through what felt like an eternity, he managed to offer a hushed ‘yeah’ as his answer._

 

* * *

 

When he finds the strength to move, no matter how minimal the movement, he does so.

Bleary irises sweep to the side to confront a warmth stirring inside of his left hand. Obito blinks to clear the haze, steadily exhaling the breath stilled in his throat. Short blond spikes are the first to greet him, face obscured seeing as over half the cranium is sinking in the midst of bedding.

That can’t be good for his back.

Naruto shifts, sheets rustling. Obito’s hand twitches involuntarily, poorly clasping its counterpart. Thankfully, it hadn’t been enough to rouse the slumbering log. Adjusting his head with a slight tilt, his gaze wanders heavensward and settles on the ceiling. With a languid close, he drifts towards the growing mass of annoyance questions brewed within his mind.

Does he feel something _positive_ towards the notion of being alive? Or is he resentful for being denied the death he feels he deserved? Now that he has an anchor keeping him in the corporeal realm, he couldn’t find the will to accept the gracious gift of a new beginning.

He did his piece. He saved his old teammate and the fragmented team Kakashi sought to protect. In that respect alone, he played a factor in the peace that now shrouds the five nations and all in between. But it does nothing to stave the string of irritated sparks nagging at his mind.

Realistically speaking, he’s not meant to be here.

Had Rin made a mistake in sending him back? Minato-sensei and Kushina as well?

 

* * *

 

_He felt the push of not a singular playful Rin, but that of various hands. Each that pushed with their own emotion, whether it stemmed from simmering anger or hope._

_Hope._

_Hope for what, exactly? What was the purpose of his return?_

_‘To give you the life you deserved’, they agreed in unison._

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t believe it. Not fully, at least.

His consciousness wavers between noting medical-nin checking up on him and addressing the decaying root sprouting doubt inside of his body. Once the sun began to settle and orange lights the skies like wildfire, Naruto rouses only because Sakura is carefully nudging his shoulder.

Much like the sky, Naruto brightens up in a similar fashion and almost throws himself onto Obito, who has since inclined his head to view the sluggish teen. Almost because Sakura spares the patient obvious pain by looping her arms around his waist and pulling him a safe distance away, undoing their hands in the process. She dismisses his whines with the flick of a wrist, narrowing her eyes at the proffered pout.

“You can’t just jump onto him, Naruto! He’s barely functioning!” Sakura exclaims.  

“ _He can, but he knows he shouldn’t_ ,” comes another voice, seeping through the shadows of the far off corner.

“Sasukeeee, don’t side with Sakura!” Naruto huffs indignantly, hand pinching his hip. “He’s finally awake! It’s been an entire month, more mayb- wait! I should, no, need to tel-”

The speed at which he’s silenced is stunning. A resounding slap encompasses the room in the form of Sakura plastering her hand over his mouth. Sasuke winces with his approach and drapes his arm across Naruto’s shoulders, pulling him close to soothe the horrendous wound by guiding it to his collarbone.

“You are absolutely not telling K- anyone anything about this,” Sakura whispers coarsely. “Or I’ll find a way to keep you in your room!”

“Sasuke... I don’t…  think I can... kiss you anymore,” he wails.

“Don’t expect me to do the work then,” Sasuke murmurs.

“Wha- I’m injured! Where’s my soothing kiss?! After all this time, I finally get t-” Naruto pulls away to stare his partner down and lecture him, only to have his plans foiled by a brief peck. As if the fuse controlling his motor neurons suddenly popped, he beams sheepishly and returns to the comfort of his partner’s shoulder.

Obito, whilst only partially tuned into the squabble, already has an inkling of what - rather, _who_ he was going to tell. His only option is to wait patiently until the dead of night envelops Konoha to address the figure.

But he wonders whether or not he has the strength to talk to _him_ , of all people. For now, he sleeps again to confront the most prominent twinge.

Fear.

 

* * *

 

_He looked down at himself and twisted his wrists, viewing the inside of his palms. They were small and non discoloured, having likely taken the appearance of his younger self before his world turned into a scheme blending black with blotches of red.  The words ‘doubt’ and ‘death’ surfaced upon his skin._

_He couldn’t possibly be allowed this, right?_

_“I don’t deserve this! Not after all I’ve done, all that I’ve killed!” He yelled, hands cupping his mouth._

_“You don’t have to yell here,” Rin answered quietly, fingers locked together neatly at her back as she emerged from a cloud. From another, Minato made his entrance, scratching the back of his head with a weary smile. Kushina stood by his side._

_“I… why? Why would you give me a chance?” Obito asked, volume fading. “Just because Naruto managed to knock some sense into me right at the very end?”_

_The trio had shaken their head in unison._

_“It’s something you’ll need to find out for yourself,” Rin hummed thoughtfully, arms soon dangling by her sides. “Just don’t dwell on the past. Think about moving forward!” She emphasised with a clenched fist raised above her head. “Did Kushina’s words not do anything to help?”_

_“It’s not that… I don’t deserve this chance, Rin, you do! Of all people… you deserve to experience it more than I.”_

_“It’s a bit late for that, but you can experience life for me. Someday, you can tell me all about it,” Rin nodded, smile broadening to the point it almost spanned from ear to ear. “But I think it’s time you wake up.”_

_“W-wait, I want to keep talking to you though! And Minato-sensei, Kushina, I’m sor-” he pursed his lips as the two held up their right arms._

_“Not the time to talk, Obito. Someone’s waiting for you,” Minato then pointed to behind the teen, to which Obito spun on his heels and without forewarning, had been pushed by three pairs of hands. He whipped his head from side to side, capturing only a glimpse of their smiles and crinkled eyes._

_“He’s hopeless,” Minato and Kushina sighed after his departure. Rin’s shoulders squared, smiling at the prospect of her closest friend gaining some tiny segment of an idea as to what to do with his newfound life._

 

* * *

 

Awful people, really. Absolute terrible. Giving him a second chance at life in which he can experience what could’ve been? What should’ve been? Disgusting.  He’ll have to remember giving them a proper thanks with his next coming.

Lids reluctantly crack open, squinting against the dying glow of the lamppost just outside his window. Lethargy hinders his blinks, but with the coming minute, he recognizes a shadow infiltrating his room. The gleam of metal does little to garner his attention.

Squatting at the windowsill is none other than his former teammate, kunai in hand.

Half-lidded eyes stare, meeting their counterpart.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll add tags as I go, just throwing out an idea that's been brewing


End file.
